The Devs Do Listen!
Posted 1 month, 1 week ago at 10:03 am. 3 comments
Patch 2.4.3 was released today and there are two notable changes to Rogues. The first is the change to Cheat Death which was announced weeks ago.
Cheat Death: This talent has been rebalanced significantly. Killing blows are no longer 100% absorbed. If the Rogue is below 10% health, the killing blow is still completely absorbed; if the Rogue is over 10% health, enough damage will be absorbed to reduce the Rogue’s health down to 10%. For the following 3 seconds, damage is not always reduced by 90%; it is now reduced by a maximum of 90%, depending on how much resilience the Rogue has. The damage reduction will be four times the damage reduction resilience causes against critical strikes.
From everything I’ve read, this won’t affect those Rogues with high Resilience much. It addresses some of the strange issues people have seen with Cheat Death giving Rogue virtual immunity for 3 seconds.
But today we also see this change to the talent Sinister Calling.
Sinister Calling now increases damage to Backstab and Hemorrhage by 1/2/3/4/5% (down from 2/4/6/8/10%.)
Now, I have both of these talents now. So, I’m understandably unhappy about being nerfed. But what is the reasoning behind the change to Sinister Calling? A 50% reduction in an ability that was affecting one source of damage (a Rogue would most likely use Backstab or Hemorrhage, not both)? I haven’t looked at my Recount in Arena, but I’m guessing that Hemorrhage is at most 50% of my damage. So, overall probably a 1-2% reduction in my damage.
So many other factors can contribute this same amount and it’s pretty minor. But why do I get the feeling this is just a result of the QQ that’s invaded the WoW Rogue forums lately? Several blue posts responded to the trolling in a manner that seemed to make it sound like Blizzard say it for what it was. But then there’s this sudden unannounced change.
Moral of the story: Despite blue posts to the contrary and the locking of threads, if players bitch enough in the official forums sooner or later the nerf bat will come.
Well, as a Sub-spec’d rogue who is primarily PvE (I’ve found it useful to have one sub-spec’d rogue in a raid as a utility, easier to sap, raid wide physical damage buff, faster stealthed mobility, ability to get back to boss on knockbacks quicker) I will miss the Cheat Death ability (which made rogue tanking some bosses and mobs easier), but I will feel the Sinister Calling reduction in damage more. When Sinister Calling was buffed back in 2.3, my hemo was on par with Sinister Strike, but for 5 less energy, and with a raid buff that is fairly easy to keep up. Then they nerfed the damage co-efficient, but you could get the damage back to almost what it was with 5/5 Sinister Calling. Now they’ve dropped it again. 5% doesn’t seem like a lot, but it will be noticeable on the overall damage meters in long fights.
What bothers me most about this is the pigeon-holing of specs by not only the community, but now by Blizzard. I’m also growing tired of the changes to abilities that have beneficial uses in PvE for the sake of Arena balance PvP.
I love shadowstep, perhaps my favorite ability in the game, because it feels like what a rogue should do (along with mutilate, combat always made me feel like a thug and lacked certain artistry of the other two builds). The buffs to Sinister Calling and the once again viability to hemo made me happy. I worked hard to prove it could be a raid spec. Now I will need to work harder, or go back to combat (thug life ;).
Sub was a viable raiding spec (I was in the top 5 on damage output in 25 mans, usually #2 behind a BM hunter or combat rogue).
I feel also for the Elemental Shamans, because it sounded like the adjustment to lightning is gonna be felt.
Some follow up in the trenches experience with the new 2.4.3 talent changes.
http://wowwebstats.com/ztiuxhkdqfce3
We did some BT trash last night and in terms of damage the difference wasn’t as bad as I thought, but I did change my load out slightly (replaced my Abacus of Violent Odds with the Hourglass of the Unraveler, can’t wait for the Gruul’s trinket).
Survivability has changed. Gone are the days in PvE of taking the killing burst damage and surviving the splash or blow back. Now you take the killing blow, it drops you to 10% health and you’ll more than likely be killed on the splash or aura or knockback.
Unfortunately what this means for me is that it’s just going to cost me a ton of gold every week having to respec for arena’s and raids. 20/0/41 definitely won’t be viable for me as i too was just managing to stay top 5 on the meters. The debuff to SC will definitely affect my sustained damage and CD as you pointed out limits survivability in boss fights. Dead rogues do no damage…
In Arena’s I think that the biggest issue will be felt trying to burn down a well geared druid. SC debuff of 5% hurts if you were barely getting them down to begin with - all they need a split second or another tick and it’s gg for you…